A monthly report on the best in new fiction and non-fiction books. Alan Caruba is a charter member of the National Book Critics Circle and has been reviewing for more than five decades. Bookviews does not review e-books, nor accept galleys, only finished, published books should be sent. To request a review, first email acaruba@aol.com

About Me

I am and have been for a long time a writer by profession. I have several books to my credit and my daily column, "Warning Signs", is disseminated on many Internet news and opinion websites, as well as blogs. In addition, I am a longtime book reviewer and have a blog offering a monthly report on new fiction and non-fiction.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

I was a
mere lad of twenty-two when Fidel Castro successfully overthrew the Cuban
dictator, Flugencia Batista, and took control of that island nation. What
followed were the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The story behind these events and the assassination of President Kennedy is
revealed in William Weyland Turner’s latest book, The Cuban Connection: Nixon, Castro and the Mob ($25.00, Prometheus Books) and it is a real
page-turner. Turner, a former FBI agent who became an investigative journalist,
has authored a number of books on the subject, but this one pulls together his
interviews with Mafia mobsters and with members of the Cuban revolution who
became disenchanted with Castro. It demonstrates how little Americans knew
about those events and, in particular, the many efforts to assassinate Castro.
Fifty-four years later, the truth can be found in this book and I heartily
recommend it, particularly in light of the scandals surround the Obama
administration. What we did not know then and do not know now that hold the
keys to the events since then and what is occurred today.

A group of Australian scientists have combined with a
professional cartoonist John Spooner (The Age, Melbourne) to write a new
easy-to-read and humorous book on global warming. Lead author Bob Carter is an Australian
palaeontologist, marine geologists and an adjunt professionial research fellow
in earth sciences at James Cook University, Queensland. For many years he has
been on the front lines debunking global warming, based on the claim that
carbon dioxide is causing the Earth to warm. Actually, the Earth has been
cooling for the last sixteen years. He has written Taxing Air: Facts and Fallacies About Climate Change ($30.00,
Kelpie Press, softcover) is filled with the best scientific information on the
topic and for anyone who wants to learn the truth, I can highly recommend it.
Readers will learn that the sea-level rise is natural and declining in rate;
that global ocean temperature is cooling slightly as well; and that no
scientist can tell you whether the world will be warmer or cooler than today in
2020 or beyond. More than a hundred basic questions are answered in the book
which includes whimsical cartoons and humorous sketches throughout.. A carbon
dioxide tax that was recently imposed on Australians has had the effect of raising
their costs for energy thereby negatively affected its economy in many ways—which
should serve as an object lesson for other nations to not follow suit.

If you are among the half of the population that is concerned with the
breakdown of our national culture, the failure of our schools, and other
societal problems, and you want to know why everything has changed for the
worse, then you will will want to reach Vincent Ryan Ruggiero’s book, Corrupted Culture: Rediscovering America’s
Enduring Principles, Values and Common Sense ($19.00, Prometheus Books,
$11.99 ebook). A professor of humanities emeritus at the State University of
New York, Delhi College, he has authored twenty-one previous books on critical
thinking, ethics, education, and communication, among other topics. For a heavy
thinker his text takes some effort to tackle, but is worth it as he provides an
in-depth historical analysis of cultural trends and tracing their origins to
the last century when intellectuals began to conclude that humans are
irredeemably stupid and that it was government’s job to tell them how to live
their lives. If you wonder why self-esteem replaced self-respectand why rights and entitlements became more
important than responsibilities, among a long list of problems facing the
nation, this book explains it.

Just published this month is New
Frontiers in Space: From Mars to the Edge of the Universe ($29.95, Time
Home Entertainment), a large format, extensively illustrated book that will
surely please anyone with an interest in our space program. It looks at the
powerful new telescopes that have given scientists the ability to hunt for
Earthlike planets in distant star systems and the entrepreneurs who are picking
up where the space shuttle left off, developing plans for commercial space
travel. It asks questions about the yet unanswered mysteries about the cosmos
regarding galaxies such as what matter makes up the universe, and how black holes
are formed. There is much more in this handsome coffee-table book that offers
hours of reading pleasure.

I have been a business and science writer for some fifty years and had to
learn by doing, but for anyone who is into science and wants to pursue it as a
professional writer, I can certainly recommend The Science Writer’s Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Pitch,
Publish, and Prosper in the Digital Age, edited by Thomas Hayden and
Michelle Nijhuis ($17.50, Da Capo Press, softcover). Science writing has become
an increasingly popular field, but trying to make a living communicating
science can be tough say the editors, especially in an industry that has
changed so much in recent years (tell me about it!)With a combined collective experience of many
years, the Writers of Scilance, an online group of science writers, share their
knowledge and it can help anyone new to the field or adjusting to the changes.

Reading
History

If I had to chose just one category of literature, I would chose history.
I find it entertaining in many ways, both for the people and events, and for an
insight to past eras that inevitably provide insights to our present one.

Early American history focuses on Washington, Jefferson and Adams among
other founders, but it is a quirk of history that others in their company, in
the years leading up to and during the Revolution, the problems with the
Articles of Confederation and the writing of the Constitution, have gotten
short shrift. David Lefer has written The
Founding Conservatives: How a Group of Unsung Heroes Saved the American
Revolution ($29.95, Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin Publishing) and has
saved them from the quasi-oblivion to which other historians have consigned
them.Among them was John Dickinson who
drafted the Articles of Confederation to unite the former colonies into states
composing the new nation. James Wilson was a staunch free-market capitalist and
who was joined by like-minded men to fight off a mob demanding controls on the
price of bread. Roger Morris created a stable money supply to finance the
Revolution and founded the first national bank of the United States. In an age
of monarchs the Americans had developed a very different view of themselves as
citizens, not subjects, and their states as individual republics, self
governed, and devoted to the welfare of the citizens, not just a class of
nobles. As far back as the ancient world, republics were known to be the most
prosperous. It is a revelation to read of these and other men who did, indeed,
save the American Revolution.

It is a common belief that the Jews of Germany and Europe went passively
to their deaths in the concentration camps and surely millions were duped by
the Nazis that they were merely being “relocated.” Information about the camps
was kept secret from Jew and non-Jew, and often not believed when it leaked
out. How the Jews Defeated Hitler by
Benjamin Ginsberg ($35.00, Roman & Littlefield Publishers) reveals that it
was not whether Jews fought, though
poorly armed, outnumbered, and without resourses, but the means they used as
participants in the the anti-Nazi resistance units and as soldiers in both the
U.S. and Soviet armies, the latter involving engineering skills that
contributed to the famed T-34 tank and other weapons. In the U.S. Jewish
organizations aided the Roosevelt administration in discrediting the prevailing
feeling of isolationism that initially prevented support for Great Britain.
Jews also provided the war effort with invaluable assistance with espionage and
cryptoanalysis. Their greatest contribution was the development of the atomic
bomb that ended the war with Japan and World War II. The author sums up the
reaction of European Jews at the time; they could not believe Germans intended
to kill them all! A professor of political science, Dr. Ginsberg concludes with
a look at the way old enemies of the Jews have mutated into new ones, the most
obvious being Muslims worldwide, but also those on the Left seeking an alliance
with them. This is a fascinating story that has not been told in its full
context until now.

Historian Ian Mortimer loves to time-travel and did so with a previous
book, The Time Traveler’s Guide to
Medieval England which I read and enjoyed. Lives were short, illness almost
always risked death, and it was a brutal and dangerous place. Now he is back
with The Time Traveler’s Guide to
Elizabethan England ($27.95, Viking). It was an exciting time to be alive
and, of course, the period in which Shakespeare wrote his plays. The British
were discovering and settling new worlds beyond their island and some would
circumnavigate the globe. Where people in the medieval era saw the sea as a
barrier, in Elizabethan times it was recognized as one of its great resources.
Using the diaries, letters, books and other writings of the day, Mortimer
offers a detailed portrait of daily life, recreating the sights, sounds, and
the smells of the streets and homes of 16th century England. He
informs us of Elizabethan attitudes towards violance, class, sex, and religion.
London was home to 200,000 people at the time and Oxford and Cambridge, home
now to famed universities, had about 5,000 each. In the course of Elizabeth’s
reign society evolved a new conception of itself, but remained “still violent
and charitable, corrupt and courageous, racist and proud.”

Every so often a book comes along that deals with a topic that will
intrigue a few readers, but may not attract a wider audience. Strange Medicine: A Shocking History of
Real Medical Practices Through the Ages ($16.00. Perigee, an imprint of
Penguin Publishing Group, softcover) by Nathan Belofsky is not for the
squeamish as it recounts in a very entertaining fashion the appalling things
that physicians from ancient times, through the Middle Ages and right up to the
twentieth century believed and did in the name of “curing” the patient. As
often as not they inflicted more pain than the ailment. Until relatively modern
times they had no idea what germs were or did. In general they preferred to
avoid any physical contact with the patient short of taking their pulse. The
real bloodwork was left to those ordinary folk who pulled teeth or set bones.
Aneshesia was completely unknown. Presidents from Washington to Garfield to
Harrison all died more from the treatments than the ailments, although Garfield
had taken a bullet. If stories involving medicine interest you, this is
definetely the book to read.

The Best Planned City
in the World by Francis R. Kowsky ($29.95, University of Massachusetts
Press) offers a view of history we tend to overlook. It is hard to imagine any
of the world’s major cities without their public parks. Examples include
Central Park in New York, London’s Hyde Park, and the Tuileries Garden in
Paris, but as the author notes, until the 1850s the concept of a “pastoral
environment in the heart of the city available to all classes of society”
simply did not exist. The movement for open spaces for the enjoyment of nature
required visionary men. In 1868 two of them, Fredrick Law Olmsted and Calvert
Vaux set their sights on Buffalo, New York and, in doing so, set in motion the
concept of park systems. Published in association with the Library of American
Landscape History, this book examines that careful planning that went into
parks. The Buffalo park system was to be the first of its kind, a revolutionary
urban experiment in what was then one of the busiest ports. Olmstead and Vaux
had already made their name with New York’s Central and Prospect Parks, but
Buffalo was to have three parks, distinct from one another and linked
throughout the city by majestic, tree-canopies boulevards. Extensively
illustrated, it is an excellent book on urban history.

On a lighter side, there’s Behind
the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America by Leslie Zemeckis ($24.95,
Skyhorse Publishing). Given unprecedented access to the performers diaries,
letters, albums, and memorabilia, the author has gathered their stories that
brings this pre-and-early TV era of entertainment to life, a time when it was
the training ground for many entertainers who migrated to Hollywood and
television, but it is the strippers that burlesque is most remembered for. Many
years ago, when she had written an autobiography, I met Blaze Starr and then
reviewed her book. Blaze was famous by then for her affairs with Louisiana’s
Governer Earl Long and others. Her contemporaries included Lily St. Cyr, Kitty
West, Tempest Storm, and Sally Rand. They made an artform of stripping,
providing a bit of sexual fantasy for a generator for whom this adult
entertainment was considered a bit racy but acceptable. That is until New York
Mayor shut down the city’s burlesque clubs. Other cities would follow suit, but
burlesque lives on in places like Las Vegas with its extraordinary shows. This
is a piece of show business history that is itself entertaining.

The Handy Art History
Answer Book by Madelynn Dickerson ($21.95, Visible Ink Press) joins The Handy History Answer Book and The Handy Science Answer Book as an
excellent compendium of information that takes the reader on a walk through
history and the world of art. From prehistoric to modern and various cultures,
this book puts a world of information between its covers as it traces art
history from cave paintings to contemporary works, guiding the reader smoothly
through the major art movements, the artists, and the important art pieces from
35,000 B.C.E. to today. While we tend to associate art with the West, this book
also demonstrates how other cultures influenced modern artists. Anyone who
loves art will want to have this book in their personal library.

Real People
in Memoirs, Biographies

Rocket Girl: The
Story of Mary Sherman Morgan—America’s First Female Rocket Scientist by George D. Morgan
($18.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) is an interesting biography on several
levels. For one, it was a search for answers by the author about his mother.
For another, it is about a moment in history that transformed the space race to
create rockets as Mary Sherman, a chemist working for North American Aviation,
was given the challenge of developing a fuel that would get a rocket
successfully into space. This was in the wake of World War II when a woman
chemist was still a rarity. The author tells of how in 1938, his mother, a
North Dakota farm girl dreamed of a career in chemistry. The effort would team
her with Werner von Braun, but the entire program was so cloaked in secrecy
that it took the passage of many years for the author to get at the facts of
her life during that time. Life is, indeed, stranger than fiction and this book
is proofagain of that.

We often ask how a successful person, someone of achievement, can become
addicted to alcohol, illegal or prescription drugs, but it happens all too
often. The story by Dr. Sylvester ‘Skip’ Sviokla IIl, From Harvard to Hell…and Back: A Doctor’s Journey through Addiction to
Recovery ($16.96, Central Recovery Press, softcover) is not uncommon as
many physicians have also become addicted, but the author has so many reasons
to avoid it that his story is a cautionary tale. He had wealth and an enviable
life until the addiction brought his life crashing down. What makes this story
carry more weight is the fact that it is written by this “doctor to the stars”
who risked losing everything. It is also worth reading to know one can overcome
the addiction. He is now medical director of several methadone clinics and
co-owner of a substance abuse clinic.

From time to time we hear of some person who decides to take a close-up
look at America and what fun it is to learn what they discovered. Paul Stutzman
previous wrote Hiking Through, the
story of how, following the death of his wife, left his career as a restaurant
manager, to hike the Appalachion Trail in search of peace, healing and freedom.
I reviewed it and still recommend it, but I can also recommend his latest book,
Biking Across America ($12.99,
Revell, softcover) in which he took on another challenge, putting aside his
hiking boots for a bike and starting at Neah Bay, Washington to end finally in
Key West, Florida. These are the two farthest points in the contiguous United
States. Along the way he met hundreds of people, some of whose stories he
tells. Through good weather and bad, he peddled on and discovered what so many
others have, that America is filled with some very good people. This is a
delightful, inspiring story.

To Your
Health

Americans are obsessed with their health so, naturally, there are lots of
books on the subject. Here are a few new ones that have arrived at Chez Caruba.

Why Can’t My Child
Stop Eating? A Guide to Helping Your Child Overcome Emotional Overeating by Debbie Danowsky,
PhD ($14.95, Contral Recovery Press, softcover). That’s the kind of title that
says it all. Michelle Obama has made every parent of every overweight or obese
child give this topic serious thought and this book provides real-world solutions
to the social, emotional, and physical problems these children encounter. It is
an emotional recovery plan crafted by an author whose own food addiction
recovery program produced results. Skinny
Smoothies: 101 Delicious Drinks that Help You Detox and Lose Weight by
Shell Harris and Elizabeth Johnson ($16.00, Da Capo Press, softcover) provides
recipes for low-calorie, nutrient-packed drinks, plus lots of tips to jumpstart
and maintain a healthy lifestyle. The authors say that smoothies are a
wholesome way to lose weight without feeling like you’re dieting. I have never
had a smoothy, but I am willing to take their word for it.

The Sugar Detox by Brooke Alpert, RD,
CDN and Patricia Farris, MD, FAAD ($24.99, Da Capo Press) addresses my
“problem” and that of many others, a love of sweets. I have never met a cookie
or ice cream I did not like. The authors say that the average American consumes
more than seventy pounds of sugar each year and that a high-sugar diet can be
detrimental to nearly all areas of health and beauty. The side affairs aren’t
just weight gain, but include premature aging and increased risk of diabetes,
atherosclerosis, heart disease, and even cataracts. This is a serious book that
offers a one-month plan to wean readers of their sugar cravings with a
four-week schedule of menu plans and fifty recipes.

Blood Pressure Down:
The 10-Step Plan to Lower Your Blood Pressure in 4 Weeks Without Prescription
Drugs by Janet Bond Brill ($15.00, Three Rivers Press, softcover) is written by
a natinally recognized expert in cardiovascular disease prevention, a
nutritionist in private practice for many years. Nearly a third of adult
Americans, an estimated 78 million people, have been diagnosed with
hypertension, and millions more are on their way to this condition. The good
news, says the author, is that hypertension is easily treatable and
preventable. You can, she says, bring your blood pressure down in just four
weeks and you can do it without resorting to prescription medications. I like
the sound of that and you will, too.

The New Testosterone
Treatment: How You and Your Doctor Can Fight Breast Cancer, Prostate Cancer,
and Alzheimer’s ($20.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) is by Dr. Edward
Friedman, a leading authority on hormone receptors and prostate cancer. As the
title says, it deals with prevention and its focus is on the use of
testasterone. It notes that we experience our highest hormone levels during our
teen years and it is a time of life when the cancers and, of course,
Alzheimer’s are not a threat.Could
bringing hormones back to teen levels be the key to vibrant good health? The
book says that the answer is a resounding yes. This book will be of particular
interest to medical professionals, but also to anyone concerned with their
health.

I confess I have never been much into exercise. When I was in the Army
fifty years ago I was required to so a lot of exercise and have not been famous
for doing as much since. One form of it has been popular in the orient for
centuries and you can read about it in Tai
Chi—The Perfect Exercise: Finding Health, Happiness, Balance, and Strength by
Arthur Rosenfeld ($19.99, Da Capo Press, softcover) and he makes it look like a
lot of fun. Many of us lead fast-paced, often stressful lives and our physical
and mental wellbeing often takes a backseat to juggling work and family
responsibilies. Like yoga, the art of tai chi provides a refuge as a low-impact
exercise among all age groups. If this interests you, this book will open the
door for you.

Kid Stuff

A delightful story for those of pre-and-early school age, there is Princess Cupcake Jones and the Missing Tutu
by Ylleya Fields and illustrated by Michael LaDuca ($15.95, Belle Publishing).
Parents know that children’s rooms are often a colorful managerie of toys here,
clothes there, and stuff everywhere. When something is lost, it may take all
day to find it. In this entertaining story, Princess Cupcake learns why she
should keep her room clean if she wants to easily find her favorite things,
among which is a favorite tutu. Her search for it is hilarious—particularly if
you are very young.

For those ages 8 to 12, Call Me Amy by Marcia Strykowski will resonate with familiar themes of growing up. The year is 1973 and for Amy Henderson, it has been a lonely one with too many awkward moments to count. When she finds an injured seal pup, she rescues him to rehabilitate him. In the process she forms an unlikely alliance with Craig, a boy around her age, and an older woman in town. With their help she discovers that people aren’t always what they seem despite what others may think of them. This is a story filled with many elements that will appeal to younger readers and I highly recommend it.

The New Horizon Press has two new books for kids with special needs, A Treasure Hunt for Mama and Me: Helping
Children Cope with Parental Illness ($9.95) by Renee Le Varrier and Samuel
Frank, MD, and Owen Has Burgers and
Drum: Helping to Understand and Befriend Kids with Asperger’s Syndrome ($9.95)
by Christine M. Shells with Frank R. Pane, MAE, BCBA. When a parent is
suffering from a serious disabling or terminal condition, a child is subject to
confusion, worry, and grief. The former book helps them to understand that,
despite the physical limitations that come with illness, the love of a parent
is forever. The latter book addresses the fact that between two and six kids
out of every thousand in the world have Asperger’s Syndrome, an autism spectrum
disorder, one that is a part of the popular TV show, Parenthood. The book notes
that they learn differently from others, but their friends can learn to
understand it and respond appropriately to it. Asperger’s makes it difficult
for both youngster’s and grownups to recognize the signals people send
regarding their moods and feelings.

Novels,
Novels, Novels

Summer is associated with reading a good novel on the beach or patio and
this summer those who enjoy fiction—if the stacks of new novels I have
received—will have a bounty from which to select. Here are just a few.

A good mystery is always worth reading and Lori Roy’s new novel, Until She Comes Home. ($26.95, Dutton)
set in Detroit in the 1950s. It’s a thriller that examines the transformation
of a neighborhood. Alder Avenue is a respectable place where the neighbors care
for one another, but that changes when two seemingly unrelated events occur;
the disappearance of childlike Elizabeth Symanski and the murder of a local
African-American woman. As the neighbors search for her, they fear that their
world will be changed forever if she is not found. It will leave you reading
until the end. The novel has been called “extraordinary”, “compelling”, and
“beautifuly, quietly disturbing.” It is all that and more. Jeffrey Deaver
delivers again with his series featuring forensic expert Lincoln Rhyme in The Kill Room ($28.00, Grand Central
Publishing). A U.S. citizen in the Bahamas is shot by a killer per excellence—a
man capable of delivering “a million-dollar bullet” from a mile or more away.
As the investigation gets going it is learned that the fiction, Robert Moreno,
was known to have strong anti-American sympathies and was assassinated by the
U.S. government. A New York assistant district attorney, Nance Laurel, is
unwilling to let the rule of law be ignored and brings a criminal case against
both the director of the National Intelligence and Operations Service (NIOS)
who ordered the killing. Rhymes is assigned to investigate the killing, but the
NIOS is not going to permit to succeed. This is a psychological thriller with
an intricate plot and arrives just as a succession of scandals involving the
government’s surveillance programs have raised some very real fears. Deaver has
won sevem Edgar nominations by the Mystery Writers of America, a Nero Award,
and other accolades.

A host of softcover novels offer all manner of summer reading fun. The
world of show business is featured in two of them. The Star Attraction by Alison Sweeney ($14.99, Hyperion) introduces
the reader to Sophie Atwater, a CrackBerry-addicted, coffee-guzzling,
sleep-deprived publicist extraordinaire on the rise at Los Angeles’ elite
boutique firm, Bennett/Peters. She has an attentive, somewhat conventional
boyfriend and she’s just landed the client of a lifetime, Billy Fox,
Hollywood’s new ‘golden boy.’ Fox has the brains and brawn that put him in
competition with George Clooney and Ryan Gosling. Put in close quarters with
Fox, sparks begin to fly and Sophie learns what it is like to be on the arm of
a rising movie star. This is a kind of Bridget Jones meets Hollywood Boulevard
story, full of fun and is a debut novel for Sweeney who is a host on the NBC
series, “The Biggest Loser”, and a role in “Days of Our lives.” How she found
time between that, plus being a wife and mother, to write this novel is
anyone’s guess, but we’re glad she did. In Primetime
Princess, ($14.95, Amazon Publishing) another novelist makes her debut.
Former NBC Executive Vice President, Lindy DeKoven, taps into her real-life
network television career to write a deliciously scandalous story in the
tradition of “The Devil Wears Proda.”At
the center of the novel is Alexa Ross, vice president of comedy development at
Hawkeye Broadcasting System who has fought her way passed the boy’s club and
after firing Jerry Keller her sleezy ex-boss, Alexis thinks she’s really at the
top. Then she learns Keller has been re-hired and is her newest employee. All-out
war ensues and Alexa has to wonder if all her efforts have been worth it. You
will have to read this entertaining novel to find out.

A most unusual novel, Lady Macbeth
On the Couch, ($14.95, Bancroft Press) could only have been written by a
psychoanalyst and, indeed, was. Dr. Alma Bond has written twenty books, some
about famous folks such as Jackie O and Maria Callas. The character of Lady
MacBeth has intrigued many others including Sigmund Freud. In Shakespeare’s
play she pushes her husband to commit regicide to acquire the throne and in Dr.
Bond’s historical fiction, Lady MacBeth tells her own story of the events of
the enduring drama about ambition and dirty deeds. Just as the play takes one
on a roller-coaster ride of intrigue, this novelization takes one into the mind
and heart of one of theatre’s most compelling characters. William Shakepeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher ($14.95, Quirk
Books, hardcover) is an officially licensed retelling of George Lucas’s epic
Star Wars in the style of the immortal Bard of Avon. Doescher knows his way
around iambic pentameter and the story has soliloquies and the clever wordplay
one would expect of Shakespeare if he wrote of the wise Jedi knight and the
evil Sith lord, of a beautiful princess held captive, and a young hero coming
of age. From MacBeth to Star Wars…you cannot make up stuff like this though
there are authors who will take on the challenge.

The emerging science of psychiatry plays a role in The Lost Prince by Selden Edwards ($16.00, Plume). It is a
follow-up to “The Little Book” and begins in fin de siecle Vienna where Weezie
Putnam met and tragically lost the love of her life, Wheeler Burden. She
returns to Boston as Eleanor, a newly confident woman armed with the belief
that she holds advance knowledge of nearly every major historical event to come
during her lifetime. She marrieds, starts a family, hires a physicist to manage
her finances, and begins to build relationships with some of the most
influential thinkers of the twentieth century, including Sigmund Freuds, Carl
Jung, and William James. She reconnects with Arnauld Eeterhazy, a young
Viennese scholar. When he is sent off to war in 1914, she must decide to allow
history to unfold come what may or use her extraordinary gifts to bend it to
deliver the life she is meant to have.

The Last Camelia by Sarah Jio ($15.00,
Plume) combines mystery, history, and romance as it follows two American women,
Flora and Addison, who are separated by more than fifty years, but connected by
the enigmatic Livingston Manor in whose countless rooms the long history of its
inhabitant’s sins are kept, upstairs and down. On the eve of the Second World
War, the last surviving specimen of a camellia plant known as the Middlebury
Pink lies secreted away on the English country estate, an amateur American
botanist, is blackmailed by an international ring of flower thieves to
infiltrate the household and acquire the covered bloom. To protect her family
she travels an ocean away to work as a nanny to the children of the manor. More
than half a century later, Manhattan garden designer, Addison, is threatened by
a dark figure from her past and takes up residence in Livingston Manor, now
owned by the family of her husband, to escape exposure. Does the last camelia
bring with it danger? You will have to read the novel!

A very different story is told in Innocence
by Louis B. Jones ($14.95, Counterpoint Press). Set in Marin County, it
follows John Gregenuber, a former Episcopal priest who has given up his parish
for a career in real estate. Born with a cleft palate, he has his life behind
the minor disfigurement of a “hare lip” but following corrective plastic
surgery, he has been invited to go on a romantic rip to a secluded country
estate with Thalia, a young woman who has also undergone the same surgery. It
is a story of two intelligent, shy people, both of whom felt unqualified for
love, and a weekend that promises happy beginnings, but which includes Thalia’s
seven special-needs clients! It is improbable, somewhat absurd, and
occasionally harrowing, but never boring!

Throughout his career, Anthony C. Winkler, widely recognized as Jamaica’s
great humorist, has been compared to Mark Twain, P.G. Wodehouse, and Kurt Vonnegut.
When you read The Family Mansion ($15.95,
Akashic Books) you would understand why. It is a wildly funny, satirical, and
poignant portrait of a young English gentleman whose best-laid plans derail
against the backdrop of 19th century British culture and Jamaica’s
luch, but harsh land, a time when English society was based upon the strictist
subordination and stratification of the classes. Harley Fudges’ charmed life is
marred only by the existance of his brother who stands to inherit everything,
leaving him to his own devices. Arranging for his assassination seems the
easiest soluion to the problem, but it goes terribly wrong and Hartley heads to
Jamaica to start a new life. After a few months falls hopelessly in love with a
slave girl named Phibba. It is a clash of cultures that Winkler turns into a
romp. CNN calls Bridget Siegal’s Domestic Affairs ($15.99, Weinstein
Books) “The Fifty Shades of Gray of
political novels.” Ms. Siegal has worked on many political campaigns and is a
political consultant, writer and actor, residing in New York. When a
twenty-something political fund-raiser, Olivia Greenley, gets tapped to work on
the presidential campaign of George governor Landon Taylor, it’s her dream job.
Her best friend is the campaign manager and Taylor is a decent, charismatic
idealist. What happens when Campaign Lesson #1, No Kissing the Boss and Lesson
#2, Loyalty Above All, go down in flames before the first primary? Is the
candidate a true romantic or a political hypocrite? How far can she go to
justify her happiness? Told with inside-the-Beltway detail, this novel will
entertain anyone with an interest in politics and even if you don’t.

For younger readers, ages 13 and up, I recommend Miss Peregine’s Home for Peculiar Children ($10.99, Quirk Books)
now in softcover after its debut in June 2011 by Ransom Riggs took the
publishing industry by storm as a #1 New York Times Bestseller. Film rights
have been sold to Twentieth Century Fox and foreign rights in more than 35
nations. A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection
of very curious photographs (which appear in the book) come together in a story
in which a horrific family tragedy sets 16-year-old Jacob journying to a remove
island off the coast of Wales where he discovers the crumbling ruins. It
becomes clear that the children who once lived there—one of whom was his own
grandfather—were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They
may have been guarantined on the island for a good reason and some may still be
alive. For any age, this makes for some great reading.

That’s it for July! Come back in August
when there will be many new fiction and non-fiction books well worth reading.
Tell your friends, coworkers and family about Bookviews.com so they too can
enjoy the many new books arriving to inform and entertain.